Tangled Up in Blue: Deciphering a Bob Dylan Masterpiece

Wikipedia - "'Tangled Up in Blue' is a song by Bob Dylan. ... The Telegraph has described the song as 'The most dazzling lyric ever written, an abstract narrative of relationships told in an amorphous blend of first and third person, rolling past, present and future together, spilling out in tripping cadences and audacious internal rhymes, ripe with sharply turned images and observations and filled with a painfully desperate longing. 'Tangled Up in Blue' is one of five songs on Blood on the Tracks that Dylan initially recorded in New York City in September 1974 and then re-recorded in Minneapolis in December that year; the later recording became the album track and single. The New York version of this song is in open E tuning.'Tangled Up in Blue' is one of the clearest examples of Dylan's attempts to write 'multi-dimensional' songs which defied a fixed notion of time and space. Dylan was influenced by his recent study of painting and the Cubist school of artists, who sought to incorporate multiple perspectives within a single plane of view. As Neil McCormick remarked in 2003: 'A truly extraordinary epic of the personal, an unreliable narrative carved out of shifting memories like a five-and-a-half-minute musical Proust.' ..."
Wikipedia
Tangled Up in Blue: Bob Dylan’s utterly transformed “Real Live” version
YouTube: Tangled Up in Blue: Deciphering a Bob Dylan Masterpiece, Tangled Up In Blue (Live), Tangled Up In Blue - NYC Session - Lyrics in description (7:01)

An Atlas of Literary Maps Created by Great Authors: J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island & More

"Plot, setting, character… we learn to think of these as discrete elements in literary writing, comparable to the strategy, board, and pieces of a chess game. But what if this scheme doesn’t quite work? What about when the setting is a character? There are many literary works named and well-known for the unforgettable places they introduce: Walden, Wuthering Heights, Howards End…. There are invented domains that seem more real to readers than reality: Faulkner’s Yoknapatowpha, Thomas Hardy’s Wessex… There are works that describe impossible places so vividly we believe in their existence against all reason: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, China Miéville’s The City and the City, Jorge Luis Borges' 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius'. ... A new book, The Writer’s Map, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones, offers lovers of literary maps—whether in non-fiction, realism, or fantasy—the opportunity to pore over maps of Thomas More’s Utopia (said to be the first literary map), Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Branwell Brontë’s Verdopolis (above), and so many more. ..."
Open Culture
amazon: The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a DIY Hip-Hop Incubator

"On the night of Halloween 1989, Bob Holman brought slam poetry to the newly reopened Nuyorican Poets Cafe. An intimate 120-person venue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the Nuyorican had been shuttered for much of the ’80s due to the fallout from 'crack, AIDS and gentrification,' says Holman. The revamped style of poetry performance – which encouraged audience participation as poets competed against each other – kick-started the Nuyorican’s transformation into a sandbox environment that attracted a wave of revered writers and artists raised under the influence of hip-hop: Paul Beatty, Reg E. Gaines, Tracie Morris, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Erykah Badu all came to use the open mic spot to figure out their artistic voices. At the apex of the movement was Saul Williams, whom Holman remembers as the 'flashpoint' for a ’90s spoken word scene that mixed hip-hop vernacular and attitude with poetical delivery. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily

2018 January: Nuyorican

Trump Is About to Get a Rude Awakening

"In the lead-up to the midterm elections, President Donald Trump tried to have it both ways. 'I’m not on the ballot, but in a certain way, I’m on the ballot,' he told supporters, yet he also made clear that he wouldn’t take the blame if Republicans did poorly. And in the end, he sort of got it both ways. Democrats handily won the House of Representatives, picking up about 34 seats. But Republicans gained seats in the Senate and limited losses in governors’ races. Anyone hoping that Tuesday’s results would deliver a clean verdict on the Trump presidency, either up or down, was disappointed, even as voters told exit pollsters that Trump was the dominant factor in the election. Yet the outcomes still tell us something about the strengths and weaknesses of the president’s campaign strategy—and, more important, about the slog that’s ahead for the next two years in Washington, as Democrats harry Trump from their perch in the House. ..."
The Atlantic
NY Times: Democrats Capture Control of House; G.O.P. Holds Senate (Video)
Guardian: Blue wave or blue ripple? A visual guide to the Democrats’ gains in the midterms
NY Times: Despite Loss of House, Trump Claims ‘Big Victory’ and Threatens Democrats (Video)

Les Stances a Sophie - Art Ensemble of Chicago (1970)

"In 1970, the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago were living as expatriates in Paris. The group had only recently expanded to its permanent quintet status with the addition of drummer/percussionist Don Moye when they were asked by New Wave director Moshe Misrahi to provide the soundtrack for his movie, Les Stances a Sophie. The music was never used in the film but, luckily, it was recorded. The result was one of the landmark records of the burgeoning avant-garde of the time and, simply put, one of the greatest jazz albums ever. ... Their extensive knowledge of prior jazz styles, love of unusual sound sources (the so-called 'little instruments') and fearless exploration of the furthest reaches of both instrumental and compositional possibilities came into full flower on this record."
allmusic
W - Les Stances a Sophie
Discogs (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Les Stances a Sophie 7 videos

Why Undocumented Immigrants Should Be Allowed to Vote

Voting booths are set up at a 2018 Minnesota primary election polling place inside the Westminster Presbyterian Church on August 14, 2018 in Minneapolis.
"Imagine: what if today, instead of being consigned to the shadows, the more than 22 million noncitizen immigrants in the US were heading to the polls? Sound preposterous? Voting by non-citizens is actually as old America itself. From the founding of the American Republic, voting rights were determined not by citizenship but by other criteria, such as race, gender, and property holdings. When women, post-emancipation African Americans, and poor white men were denied voting rights, it was due to elite antipathy — not because they lacked citizenship. Non-citizens in those years picked electoral winners and losers, and even held political office. What brought this period of 'alien suffrage' to a close was simple nativism. ..."
Jacobin

Jazz on 45 Vol. 5 Mixape – Hugh Masekela Special Edition

"Trumpeter/arranger/producer/bandleader Todd Simon brings his fifth installment of #JazzOn45 celebrating the life and music of his longtime hero: the South African trumpeter/bandleader/vocalist/humanitarian Hugh Masekela. 'No other musician has impacted the way I hear, create, and perform than Bra Hugh has,' explains Todd. 'His unique sound—blending gorgeous lyricism with immense-percussive rhythm on the trumpet and flügelhorn—is that of no other. I hope you enjoy this small collection of Hugh Masekela’s as much as I am presenting it for you. Note that this is just a small glimpse into an incredible catalog of material that Hugh left us with. I will definitely be posting some non-45 mixes featuring the music of Bra Hugh so we can continue to celebrate his genius! Thank you for listening and reading.' ..."
WaxPoetics (Audio)
W - Hugh Masekela

Sparrows

Wikipedia - "Sparrows are a family of small passerine birds. They are also known as true sparrows, or Old World sparrows, names also used for a particular genus of the family, Passer. They are distinct from both the American sparrows, in the family Passerellidae, and from a few other birds sharing their name, such as the Java sparrow of the family Estrildidae. Many species nest on buildings and the house and Eurasian tree sparrows, in particular, inhabit cities in large numbers, so sparrows are among the most familiar of all wild birds. They are primarily seed-eaters, though they also consume small insects. Some species scavenge for food around cities and, like gulls or rock doves will happily eat virtually anything in small quantities. Generally, sparrows are small, plump, brown and grey birds with short tails and stubby, powerful beaks. The differences between sparrow species can be subtle. ..."
Wikipedia
House Sparrow Identification (Video)
Song Sparrow Identification (Video)
Audubon: House Sparrow (Video)
How the house sparrow made its home with humans

The house sparrow’s closeness to humans might have changed its genes, giving it a larger beak and a tolerance for a starchy diet.

No Free Walls: a Mini-Documentary on How Street Art and Gentrification Collide in Bushwick

"The Bushwick Collective is a non-profit organization which organizes and curates a collection of street art murals in a rapidly-gentrifying former industrial area of Bushwick, Brooklyn. This great mini-documentary from Complex titled No Free Walls shines a spotlight on the intersection of street art and gentrification in Bushwick. NO FREE WALLS is an in-depth look at Brooklyn's changing landscape, through the eyes of Joseph Ficalora, the founder and inadvertent art curator of The Bushwick Collective. Joe, son of Italian immigrants, grew up in Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn once ravaged by drugs, neglect and violence."
Complex (Video) 31:58

The Man Who Turns Back New York City’s Clocks, Hand by Hand

"Marvin Schneider, 79, flashed his New York City employee identification badge — 'clock repairer' — and walked into City Hall in Lower Manhattan on Friday morning. The end of daylight saving time was approaching — clocks are supposed to be turned back Sunday at 2 a.m. — and Mr. Schneider had gone to City Hall to turn back time. Mr. Schneider’s actual title is a bit more grandiose than his badge description. He is the city’s official clock master and he has been tending some of the city’s grandest public clocks since the late 1970s. His year-round maintenance includes timing adjustments — although these old clocks are surprisingly accurate, he said — and repairing the gears, levers and chains behind those giant clock faces that some people still rely on even in the smartphone age. ..."
NY Times

The Color of Pomegranates - Sergei Parajanov (1968)

Wikipedia - "The Color of Pomegranates (Armenian: Նռան գույնը) is a 1969 Soviet art film written and directed by Sergei Parajanov. It is a poetic treatment of the life of the 18th century Armenian singer Sayat-Nova. It has appeared in some scholarly polls of the greatest films ever made. The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova (King of Song) that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented with little dialogue using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court (where he falls in love with a tsarina), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. ... Soviet censors and Communist Party officials objected to Parajanov's stylized, poetic treatment of Sayat-Nova's life and complained that it failed to educate the public about the poet. As a result, the film's title was changed from Sayat-Nova to The Color of Pomegranates, and all references to Sayat-Nova's name were removed from the credits and chapter titles in the original Armenian release version. The noted Armenian writer Hrant Matevosyan wrote new, abstractly poetic Armenian-language chapter titles. Officials further objected to the film's abundance of religious imagery, although a great deal of religious imagery still remains in both surviving versions of the film. Initially the State Committee for Cinematography in Moscow refused to allow distribution of the film outside of Armenia. It premiered in Armenia in October 1969, with a running time of 77 minutes. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: In ‘The Color of Pomegranates,’ the Cinema of the Cryptic By J. Hoberman
Guardian - The Colour of Pomegranates: a chance to savour a poetic masterpiece (Video)
senses of cinema
Criterion (Video)
amazon
YouTube: The Color of Pomegranates. Trailer

Digging in Ghana with Frank Gossner

"Many things made me want to start Dust & Grooves: my love of vinyl, the loss of most of my own record collection, my desire to develop a fun and meaningful photography project—and a handful of really inspiring people. One of those people is Frank Gossner, also known as the man behind VoodooFunk. Soon after moving to New York City in the summer of 2008, I read a Village Voice story about Frank, a very serious record collector originally from Germany. Frank has literally spent years crate digging in Africa for the Afrobeat, Funk, and Disco records that are the main focus of his collection. Immediately after reading about him, I wanted to meet him, and contacted him through his mighty blog, Voodoo Funk. Frank graciously agreed to see me over coffee, and the conversation we had that day led many places, including to the beginning of Dust & Grooves. In the months that followed, Frank kept encouraging me to start the vinyl photography project that had been germinating in my head for some time, and also helped introduce me to the people and places at the heart of the New York digging scene. One of the first acquaintances I made through him was Joel Stones, owner of the gorgeous East Village record shop Tropicalia in Furs. ..."
Dust and Grooves (Audio)

"This Machine Kills Fascists" message Woody Guthrie

Wikipedia - "'This Machine Kills Fascists' is a message that Woody Guthrie placed on his guitar in 1941, which inspired many subsequent artists. Soon after moving into a small fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Manhattan, Guthrie wrote the war song 'Talking Hitler's Head Off Blues'. This was printed in the Daily Worker newspaper: then 'In a fit of patriotism and faith in the impact of the song, he painted on his guitar THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.' ... This recalled a protest strategy he had used 'during the Great Depression, when social, political and economic inequality had been engendered by a small rich elite.' ... In this, Guthrie cast those opposing fascism not as mere outlaws in a fascist state, but as heroes rising 'in times of economic turmoil and social disintegration' to fight 'a highly illegitimate criminal endeavor intended to exploit the common people.' ..."
Wikipedia, YouTube: Tear the fascists down
“This Machine Kills Fascists - The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie (Video)

In The Moment Is The Best Record Store In Vermont

"Nestled among a string of independently owned shops stretching modestly along a literal Main Street, In The Moment isn’t exactly the sort of record store I grew up frequenting. As a born-and-raised New Yorker, I spent the ‘90s and ‘00s in decidedly more downtown digs, commuting from Queens apartments to cop at establishments like the infamous snob boutique Other Music or the utilitarian underdog Mondo Kim’s or niche techno favorite Sonic Groove—notably, all now closed. I narrowly avoided overpriced tourist trap Bleecker Bob’s as I prowled East Village dub dispensary Jammyland, occasionally squeezing down its narrow staircase to finger through the bespoke noise CD-Rs and cassettes at Hospital Productions. ... In The Moment is not at all like these places. For starters, it is located in Brattleboro, Vermont, about a 200 mile drive from Generation Records, one of the few surviving Greenwich Village outposts. ..."
Vinyl Me, Please
In The Moment
facebook
YouTube: Making It Here: In the Moment Records | Connecting Point

Literary Magazines Are Born to Die

"Literary magazines are born to die. Radical passion often meets practical reality. Sometimes the fire behind great literary magazines is the exact thing that causes them to burn out. Other magazines lose institutional funding, fold because of scandal, or vanish along with their masthead. Whatever the reason, the literary world is full of defunct magazines you shouldn’t forget about. Here are five that are worth remembering. ..."
LITHUB

‘I Like Your Photographs Because They Are Beautiful’ - Orhan Pamuk

A landing stage in the Salacak neighborhood on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, 1968.
"Ara Guler, who died on Oct. 17, was the greatest photographer of modern Istanbul. He was born in 1928 in an Armenian family in Istanbul. Ara began taking photographs of the city in 1950, images that captured the lives of individuals alongside the city’s monumental Ottoman architecture, its majestic mosques and magnificent fountains. I was born two years later, in 1952, and lived in the same neighborhoods he lived in. Ara Guler’s Istanbul is my Istanbul. I first heard of Ara in the 1960s when I saw his photographs in Hayat, a widely read weekly news and gossip magazine with a strong emphasis on photography. One of my uncles edited it. Ara published portraits of writers and artists such as Picasso and Dali, and the celebrated literary and cultural figures of an older generation in Turkey such as the novelist Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. ..."
NY Times

Nightfall in the Istanbul district of Zeyrek, 1960.

2012 April: The Museum of Innocence (2008), 2017 September: Istanbul: Memories and the City

The Bridge - Sonny Rollins (1962)

"Between 1953 and 1959, the jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins released twenty-one full-length albums. This kind of prolificacy seems absurd now, during an era in which new musical material is meted out on a preordained, market-friendly schedule—a few weeks of recording, a year or two of touring, a cashed paycheck, repeat. But music rushed out of Rollins, like an overfed river. Miles Davis described Rollins’s output circa 1954 as 'something else. Brilliant.' In his book 'Black Music,' the critic and poet Amiri Baraka—then writing as LeRoi Jones—called his music 'staggering.' Baraka suggested that Rollins, along with John Coltrane and the pianist Cecil Taylor, was doing the necessary work 'to propose jazz again as the freest of Western music.' Then, in 1959, Rollins stopped. He was twenty-eight years old. According to 'Who Is Sonny Rollins,' a short BBC documentary from 1968, Rollins—who had been addicted to heroin in the late nineteen-forties and early fifties but sweated it out at the Lexington Narcotics Farm, a combination federal prison and rehabilitation facility, in Lexington, Kentucky—was exhausted by what he understood as a culture of nonstop degradation. Unsavory promoters, seedy clubs,'the whiskey.' ..."
New Yorker: A Quest to Rename the Williamsburg Bridge for Sonny Rollins
W - The Bridge (Sonny Rollins album)
NY Times: Sax and Sky by Sonny Rollins
Discogs
amazon: The Bridge, Black Music - LeRoi Jones
vimeo: Sonny Rollins with Paul Jeffrey 28:16
YouTube: The Bridge (Live)
YouTube: The Bridge (1962) (Full Album), SONNY ROLLINS on Monk and The Bridge

2012 September: The Singular Sound of Sonny Rollins, 2012 December: Village Vanguard, 2015 September: Rollins Plays for Bird (1957), 2016 February: Saxophone Colossus (1956), 2016 May: Plus 4 (1956), 2017 June: Inside Sonny Rollins’s Jazz Archive, Headed Home to Harlem, 2018 April: Tenor Madness (1956), 2017 May: Moving Out (1954)

The Insult - Ziad Doueiri (2018)

Wikipedia - "The Insult (Arabic: قضية رقم ٢٣‎, translit. Qadiyya raqm 23, lit. 'Case No. 23', French: L'insulte) is a 2017 Lebanese drama film directed by Ziad Doueiri and co-written by Doueiri and Joelle Touma. It was screened in the main competition section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival. At Venice, Kamel El Basha won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. It was selected as the Lebanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Oscar at the 90th Academy Awards. Tony Hanna is a Lebanese Christian and devoted member of the Christian Party, with a pregnant wife, Shirine. Not wanting workers near his property when Shirine is there, Tony discovers contractors modifying the gutter on his balcony. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: In ‘The Insult,’ the Dispute Is Personal. And Political. by A.O. Scott
Roger Ebert
Film Comment
amazon
YouTube: THE INSULT (2018) - Official HD Trailer - A film by Ziad Doueiri

Just A Simple Soul - Bert Jansch

"... From his 1965 iconic debut album, Bert’s peerless musicality, songwriting and interpretation of traditional song has held generation after generation spellbound and inspired musicians in all genres. Just A Simple Soul (Out on 26th October) – named after the closing track on his 1998 album Toy Balloon – is the first collection of Jansch’s entire solo career, with insightful liner notes by Bernard Butler (Suede) who compiled this selection with the Bert Jansch Estate. ... Presented chronologically the collection begins by drawing from his prolific 1960s period, during which he released six albums between 1965 and 1969. His self-titled debut, sometimes referred to as The Blue Album, is listed at #3 in NME’s Best Folk Albums Of All Time, and this collection plucks three tracks including the harrowing ‘Needle Of Death’; about the tragic passing of Bert’s friend, folk singer Buck Polly. ..."
Folk Radio
amazon
YouTube: Just A Simple Soul, Reynardine (live), Needle of Death, Blackwaterside (Live Norwegian TV '73)

April 2010: Bert Jansch, 2011 October: Bert Jansch (November 1943 – October 2011), 2011 September: Faro Annie,  2011 April: Cruel Sister (1970) - Pentangle, 2014 February: Bert & John (1966)

Democrats, Don’t Take Native American Voters for Granted

A polling station on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Fort Yates, North Dakota in 2016.

"Ahead of the midterm elections, the state of North Dakota is using one of the most restrictive voter identification laws in the country to engage in that most American of traditions: excluding and discriminating against indigenous people. Thanks to the state’s Republican Party, all who want to take part in the democratic process must have a residential address on their identification cards. However, many tribal citizens in North Dakota don’t have residential addresses or postal service. There are five federally recognized tribes in the state, with five reservations. More than 31,000 indigenous people live in North Dakota, and around 60 percent of that population lives on reservations. ..."

NY Times

2011 July: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown, 2012 September: The Ghost Dance, 2016 September: A History and Future of Resistance, 2016 November: Dakota Access Pipeline protests, 2016 December: Police Violence Against Native Americans Goes Far Beyond Standing Rock, 2016 December: Dakota Protesters Say Belle Fourche Oil Spill 'Validates Struggle', 2017 January: A Murky Legal Mess at Standing Rock, 2017 January: Trump's Move On Keystone XL, Dakota Access Outrages Activists, 2017 February: Army veterans return to Standing Rock to form a human shield against police, 2017 February: Standing Rock is burning – but our resistance isn't over, 2017 March: Dakota Access pipeline could open next week after activists face final court loss, 2017 April: The Conflicts Along 1,172 Miles of the Dakota Access Pipeline, 2017 May: 'Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids': Why Standing Rock is about much more than oil, 2017 June: Dakota pipeline protesters won a small victory in court. We must fight on, 2018 February: PHOTOS: Since Standing Rock, 56 Bills Have Been Introduced in 30 States to Restrict Protests, 2018 November: Dennis J. Banks, Naawakamig (1937-2017), 2018 April: The Next Standing Rock? A Pipeline Battle Looms in Oregon

Dawson City: Frozen Time - Bill Morrison (2016)

"Bill Morrison’s films straddle film history and avant-garde expressionism, mining the wealth of silent film history and exploring the abstract beauty of decaying nitrate film, a particularly volatile medium that breaks down over time. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) celebrates the 'Dawson Film Find' of 1978, thousands of reels of film buried in the permafrost, and tells the history of the Yukon town. Founded in the 1890s Gold Rush, it grew from a muddy collection of buildings to a bustling city of 40,000 at its peak, and back down to a town of under 1000 inhabitants by the 1970s. Morrison frames the documentary with the discovery of the buried trove of silent films. Dawson City was the end of the line for film distribution and the studios wouldn’t pay the freight to return prints that were essentially worthless by time they reached the Yukon, so the films were stored and finally buried in an old civic swimming pool. Decades later, they were unearthed during a redevelopment project. ..."
Stream On Demand
W - Dawson City: Frozen Time
NY Times: In ‘Dawson City: Frozen Time,’ Early Movies Lost and Found
amazon
YouTube: Dawson City: Frozen Time – Official Trailer, Music out of time in "Dawson City: Frozen Time" (in stereo), Dawson City: Frozen Time | Clip: Gymnasium Movie Theater | NYFF54

2012 June: Bill Morrison, 2015 October: Decasia (2002), 2017 December: The Miners' Hymns (2011), 2018 January: The Dockworker's Dream (2016)

A Fate Worse Than Slavery, Unearthed in Sugar Land

Prints depicting enslaved people producing sugar in Antigua, 1823

"The blood-drenched history that gave the city of Sugar Land, Tex., its name showed its face earlier this year, when a school construction crew discovered the remains of 95 African-Americans whose unmarked graves date back more than a century. The dead — some of whom may have been born in slavery — are victims of the infamous convict leasing system that arose after Emancipation. Southerners sought to replace slave labor by jailing African-Americans on trumped-up charges and turning them over to, among others, sugar cane plantations in the region once known as the Sugar Bowl of Texas. A bitter debate has erupted in Sugar Land, a fast-growing suburb southwest of Houston. Sugar Land officials, who want to move the remains to a nearby cemetery, are at odds with members of a city-appointed task force who rightly argue that a historical find of this magnitude should be memorialized on the spot where it was discovered. ..."

NY Times
W - Sugarcane

A display at the Sugar Land Heritage Museum and Visitor Center. At center, convicts harvesting sugar cane circa 1900.

Tunde Williams-Lekan Animashaun - Mr. Bigmouth-Low Profile

"Baritone saxophonist Lekan Animashaun and trumpeter Tunde Williams were the heart and soul of the Afrika 70 horn section in Fela Kuti's legendary Afrobeat band. As long time Fela colleagues, it is only fitting that these high profile players were able to make their own albums as leaders with the Afrika 70 group, reissued here on this import CD. Animashaun's 'Low Profile' and Williams' 'Mr. Big Mouth' have all the trademarks of classic Afrobeat -- pulsating march-like grooves, layered percussion, and great, catchy horn riffs. The only thing missing is Fela's booming baritone vocals. With facsimiles of the original cover art and an essay by esteemed Fela biographer Michael Veal, this is a most necessary purchase for Fela devotees. If you picked up all the Fela MCA reissues as I have (if you haven't, hurry up they are starting to go OOP), and you can't get enough Afrika 70, then this disc is for you. ...."
Holland Tunnel Dive
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Tunde Williams - The Beginning, Tunde Williams - Mr Big Mouth, Lekan Animashaun - Low Profile, Lekan Animashaun - Serere (Do Right)

Noah Purifoy - Tilton Gallery

“Access,” from 1993, mixed media assemblage.
"In the rough, dexterous assemblages of the Los Angeles artist Noah Purifoy (1917–2004), a Duchampian embrace of found objects fused with a political activism that went out of the gallery and extended to a decade in California government. He was the subject of an impassioned posthumous retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2015; his expansive Joshua Tree Outdoor Museum, with more than 100 sculptures made from junk materials, draws pilgrims to the Mojave Desert. Yet there has never been a Purifoy exhibition on the East Coast before this very welcome outing at Tilton, which includes a baker’s dozen of his later, mostly wall-mounted constructions. ..."
NY Times: What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week
Jacktilton Gallery
Noah Purifoy Foundation

The Death of FilmStruck Is a Dark Day in the History of Movies

"On a Friday dominated by the dramatic arrest of a domestic terrorism suspect, it might seem trivial to care about the summary execution of FilmStruck, the 2-year-old classic film streaming service, which curated films from the archives of Warner Bros. and the Criterion Collection, along with art-house distributors like Kino and Flicker Alley. WarnerMedia, formed when AT&T received approval to acquire Time Warner Inc. in June, announced Friday that FilmStruck will be shutting down at the end of November, a victim of corporate impatience with 'niche services' that included already-shuttered production service Super Deluxe and the Korean film site DramaFever. The strangled corporate newspeak of the memo announcing the closure, with its reference to the 'learnings' to be gleaned from the FilmStruck experiment, engenders the same kind of helpless rage as he tortured syntax of Donald Trump’s tweets—it’s so painfully revealing of the kind of grandiose carelessness that is the hallmark of power right now. ..."
Slate
How to Get the Most Out of the Criterion Collection Before It Leaves Hulu
Vanity Fair: FilmStruck, the Cinephile’s Answer to Netflix, Is Shutting Down

The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture

Researchers demonstrate the process of applying color to the Treu Head, from a Roman sculpture of a goddess, made in the second century A.D. Ancient sculptures were often painted with vibrant hair colors and skin tones.
"Mark Abbe was ambushed by color in 2000, while working on an archeological dig in the ancient Greek city of Aphrodisias, in present-day Turkey. At the time, he was a graduate student at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, and, like most people, he thought of Greek and Roman statues as objects of pure white marble. The gods, heroes, and nymphs displayed in museums look that way, as do neoclassical monuments and statuary, from the Jefferson Memorial to the Caesar perched outside his palace in Las Vegas. Aphrodisias was home to a thriving cadre of high-end artists until the seventh century A.D., when an earthquake caused it to fall into ruin. In 1961, archeologists began systematically excavating the city, storing thousands of sculptural fragments in depots. ..."
New Yorker (Audio)

Mission of Burma - Vs. (1982)

Wikipedia - "Vs. is the debut studio full-length album by American post-punk band Mission of Burma, following their 1981 EP, Signals, Calls, and Marches. It was released in October 1982 by record label Ace of Hearts. It is the only full-length studio album the band released during the 1980s – and until 2004, as soon afterward they disbanded due to guitarist Roger Miller's worsening tinnitus. Whereas 1981's Signals, Calls, and Marches was notable for its accessible and organized qualities, Vs. saw Mission of Burma make a deliberate effort to record the chaos and noise that characterized their live performances. The songs on the album feature a greater presence of band member Martin Swope's electronic and tape sound effects than with the band's previous recordings. Mission of Burma guitarist Roger Miller considered Vs. to be the band's best recording, and among the greatest rock and roll albums ever made. ..."
Wikipedia
Discogs
YouTube: Mission of Burma- VS. Full Album 11 videos

The Halibut Hook Revival

This early halibut hook from the Tlingit tribe Xootsnoowú (fortress of brown bears) was collected in Angoon, Alaska, by John J. McLean in 1882, and is now in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The figural element on the 28-centimeter-long hook depicts an unknown being eating, or spiritually connecting to, a halibut.
"Jonathan Rowan lowers his handmade wooden halibut hook into the tranquil early-morning water off Klawock, Alaska, and urges it to go down and fight: 'Weidei yei jindagut,' he says in the Tlingit language. From his skiff, the tribal leader, who is joined by two friends, watches the V-shaped hook about as long as his forearm slowly sink and hopes the imagery he carved on the seafloor-facing arm—a beaver perched on a chewed stick—entices a halibut. Rowan, a master carver, is acting on an omen. The previous morning, the hook had fallen off a cup hook in the ceiling of his workshop and landed between him and his friends as they were having coffee and discussing where to fish. ..."
Hakai Magazine (Audio)

15 Influential Political Art Pieces

Ai Weiwei - With Flowers from 2013
"What is political art? Is it different than the art itself and could it be the art beside the politics, as we know the political truth is the ruling mechanism over all aspects of humanity. From its beginnings, art is inseparable from the societies and throughout its history authors always reflected the present moment bringing the artistic truth to the general public. For Plato and Aristotle, mimesis – the act of artistic creation is inseparable from the notion of real world, in which art represents or rather disputes the various models of beauty, truth, and the good within the societal reality. Hence, position of the art sphere is semi-autonomous, as it is independent field of creation freed from the rules, function and norms, but on the other hand, art world is deeply connected and dependent from artistic production, ways of curating and display as well as socio-economical conditions and political context. ..."
WIDEWALLS

Vladimir Tatlin - The Monument to the Third International from 1917

Two Sevens Clash - Culture (1976)

"One of the masterpieces of the roots era, no album better defines its time and place than Two Sevens Clash, which encompasses both the religious fervor of its day and the rich sounds of contemporary Jamaica. Avowed Rastafarians, Culture had formed in 1976, and cut two singles before beginning work on their debut album with producers the Mighty Two (aka Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson). Their second single, 'Two Sevens Clash,' would title the album and provide its focal point. The song swept across the island like a wildfire, its power fed by the apocalyptic fever that held the island in its clutches throughout late 1976 and into 1977. (Rastafarians believed the apocalypse would begin when the two sevens clashed, with July 7, 1977, when the four sevens clashed, the most fearsome date of concern.) However, the song itself was fearless, celebrating the impending apocalypse, while simultaneously reminding listeners of a series of prophesies by Marcus Garvey and twinning them to the island's current state. For those of true faith, the end of the world did not spell doom, but release from the misery of life into the eternal and heavenly arms of Jah. Thus, Clash is filled with a sense of joy mixed with deep spirituality, and a belief that historical injustice was soon to be righted. ..."
allmusic
W - Two Sevens Clash
Discogs (Video)
Genius (Audio)
amazon
YouTube: Two Sevens Clash 1977 FULL ALBUM

2nd Ave Deli Sign

"Now and then, the lost artifacts of vanished New York will resurface. I heard from a painter who recently moved his studio into a former woodshop's space in the East Village. In the backyard, under piles of junk, he unearthed the double-sided neon sign of the old Second Avenue Deli. Opened in 1954, the deli (and the sign) stood on the southeast corner of Second Avenue and East 10th Street until 2006, when it closed due to a rent dispute with the building's new owner. ... As I wrote in my book, Vanishing New York, 'Today, the Second Avenue Deli’s Yiddish Walk of Fame remains, out of context and rapidly fading.' ..."
Jeremiah's Vanishing New York
W - Second Avenue Deli
2nd Ave Deli

Native America

"At the intersection of Native knowledge and modern scholarship is a new vision of America and its people. Native America is a four-part PBS series that challenges everything we thought we knew about the Americas before and since contact with Europe. It travels through 15,000-years to showcase massive cities, unique systems of science, art, and writing, and 100 million people connected by social networks and spiritual beliefs spanning two continents. The series reveals some of the most advanced cultures in human history and the Native American people who created it and whose legacy continues, unbroken, to this day. ..."
PBS: Native America - About (Video)
PBS: Native America (Video)
PBS: Native America - Interactive Map

Lou Reed at The Ritz (07-16-1986)

"On July 16, 1986, Lou Reed played the first of two sold out show at The Ritz! Billed as 'The New York Original Comes Home,' Reed treated the crowd to some classic songs including 'Sweet Jane,' 'Walk On The Wild Side,' and many tracks from his fourteenth solo album 'Mistrial,' which was released the previous month. Thanks to St. Pauli Girl for putting on this concert series!"
The McKenzie Tapes (Audio)
YouTube: Full Concert - 07/16/86 - Ritz (OFFICIAL) 2:12:32

2010 August: Heroin, 2011 June: All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground, 2011 June: The Velvet Underground, 2012 November: Songs for Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale, 2013 October: Lou Reed (1942 - 2013), 2014 June: The Bells (1979), 2014 August: New York (1989), 2015 June: Capitol Theatre Passaic, NJ 9/25/1984, 2015 October: The Blue Mask (1982), 2016 March: New Sensations (1984), 2016 May: Coney Island Baby (1976), 2017 March: Celebrating Lou Reed: 1942–2013, 2017 November: Watch Footage of the Velvet Underground Composing..., 2018 February: Street Hassle (1978)

Tiny Spaces: The Home Studios of Technopolis

"Live in New York long enough and you’ll hear someone, somewhere bemoaning the lack of exciting music scenes like the ones they fondly remember. This sentiment is both completely misguided and weirdly sort of true, and it’s the beautiful thing about attempting to keep up with a city that often feels defined by the art it produces. Even as one scene balloons globally, another ferments locally, waiting in the wings for its moment to explode. It would be unfair to characterize all the artists playing the Technopolis party as part of a unified scene. ... To better understand how they work, photographer William Mebane visited the workspaces of Ital, Aurora Halal, Max McFerren and Umfang – just a few of the artists playing Saturday night’s party in an attempt to tap into their relentless musical spirits. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily

Benjamin Lew - Nebka (1995)

"A 'nebka' is described in the booklet accompanying this unique release as a 'dune formed by the wind around an obstacle in the desert.' As on his past albums, much of the music here retains the character of a travelogue, particularly one devoted to roving Northern Africa. The short tracks are like evocative snapshots taken perhaps randomly but always with an eye attuned to local color while still deeply infused with a Western aesthetic. Lew is rarely overt in his borrowings from this or that culture; more often references to folk cultures exist as a heady tinge to his own brand of music which seems to have developed from such sources as Brian Eno and Erik Satie. For every dash of ambient style, there is an offsetting spice of a darker flavor or of a quirky, non-idiomatic minimalism. ... Treading a path strewn with potential pitfalls, Lew manages to navigate far away from both 'cultural imperialism' and new age trappings and produces an exceptional, one of a kind offering. Nebka is a superb, finely crafted, and, in the end, luxuriant album."
allmusic
Discogs (Video)
Bandcamp (Audio)
amazon, iTunes
YouTube: Nebka, Comme Tout Embue, Tout Danse, Ces Lignes Tremblees et l'Absence de Couleurs Vives, Partout Du Sable, Hommes Assis Devant Un Mur Chaulé